An alternate title I contemplated for this post was: “China refuses to grow up.” By this I mean China cannot quite grapple with the legacy of Mao or come to terms with civil change and a pro-democratic outlook. China is doomed to fabricate lies and dress them up as history, attempting to suppress dissent at all times.
But Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (Rev. Ed. 2012) is about more than Communist revisionism. It is a harsh criticism of how the communist party deals with business, corruption, capitalism, and the people.
This book is a departure from many other China books which lavishly praise China’s pro-capitalistic tendencies. But is China really capitalistic? The success of China’s business is not a success of the individual entrepreneur. The competition is actually between regions that seek to outdo each other. The region with the largest growth gets showered with rewards from the Centre.
Even though it is not strictly capitalistic, “the economic transformation of China … is a global event without parallel. The rise of China is a genuine mega-trend, a phenomenon with the ability to remake the world economy, sector by sector. That it is presided over by a communist party makes it even more jarring for a western world which, only a few years previously, was feasting on notions of the end of history and the triumph of liberal democracy,” states McGregor.
The chameleon-like nature of the top Chinese officials is well brought out: “… [T]hey are masters at calibrating their support for Marx, Mao or the market, depending on who is listening…. The same official who one minute will be lecturing you about how the west should abide by the strictures of the market …, the next minute will be assuring a Chinese audience of the horrors of unfettered capitalism and his or her deep belief in Marxism. The change of political attire is akin to a Wall Street banker disappearing Clark Kent-like into a phone box, and emerging swiftly a few minutes later dressed as Karl Marx.”
McGregor describes how even in recent years the party has tried to suppress information: the case of the company Sanlu which produced toxic milk powder that poisoned thousands of infants in 2008 and the 2003 SARS epidemic.
At present, China is slowing down. Several commentators harp with glee on the “coming collapse of China”. But, McGregor writes, they miss the point. “China will destabilize the world not only if it fails but if it succeeds as well….The rest of the world will have to adjust and compete, be it for dominance of the sea lanes in Asia, in search for oil in Africa, …or over the latest mobile phone standards. Name any global debate and China will inevitably be positioned at the heart of it.”
But Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (Rev. Ed. 2012) is about more than Communist revisionism. It is a harsh criticism of how the communist party deals with business, corruption, capitalism, and the people.
This book is a departure from many other China books which lavishly praise China’s pro-capitalistic tendencies. But is China really capitalistic? The success of China’s business is not a success of the individual entrepreneur. The competition is actually between regions that seek to outdo each other. The region with the largest growth gets showered with rewards from the Centre.
Even though it is not strictly capitalistic, “the economic transformation of China … is a global event without parallel. The rise of China is a genuine mega-trend, a phenomenon with the ability to remake the world economy, sector by sector. That it is presided over by a communist party makes it even more jarring for a western world which, only a few years previously, was feasting on notions of the end of history and the triumph of liberal democracy,” states McGregor.
The chameleon-like nature of the top Chinese officials is well brought out: “… [T]hey are masters at calibrating their support for Marx, Mao or the market, depending on who is listening…. The same official who one minute will be lecturing you about how the west should abide by the strictures of the market …, the next minute will be assuring a Chinese audience of the horrors of unfettered capitalism and his or her deep belief in Marxism. The change of political attire is akin to a Wall Street banker disappearing Clark Kent-like into a phone box, and emerging swiftly a few minutes later dressed as Karl Marx.”
McGregor describes how even in recent years the party has tried to suppress information: the case of the company Sanlu which produced toxic milk powder that poisoned thousands of infants in 2008 and the 2003 SARS epidemic.
At present, China is slowing down. Several commentators harp with glee on the “coming collapse of China”. But, McGregor writes, they miss the point. “China will destabilize the world not only if it fails but if it succeeds as well….The rest of the world will have to adjust and compete, be it for dominance of the sea lanes in Asia, in search for oil in Africa, …or over the latest mobile phone standards. Name any global debate and China will inevitably be positioned at the heart of it.”
Great and succinct review, Anand. The book sounds quite interesting.
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